Internet of Things (IoT), also referred to as Machine-to-Machine (M2M), is in a tremendous growth phase encompassing several industry verticals. Based on the latest industry forecast, there will be 26 billion connected devices by 2020. Just within healthcare industry, IoT is expected to comprise a $117 billion market by 2020.
IoT devices are essentially light weight devices supporting low-cost CPU, memory, disk space, a specialized sensor and a communication module. Most IoT devices are designed to serve specific purposes in a particular domain, such as human wearables, home automation, retail environments, offices, factories, worksites, vehicles, and cities. IoT devices include a broad range of configurations ranging from those having basic device connectivity to some of the more complex wearable applications and enterprise-based services.
To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures.